Fatherlessness is one of the greatest social problems in Canada

Interesting Quote from Amy Alkon, The Advice Goddess, syndicated
columnist in over 100 US and Canadian publications:

-While the law allows women to turn casual sex into cash flow
sex, Penelope Leach, in her book
Children First, poses an essential question: “Why is it socially
reprehensible for a man to leave a baby fatherless, but courageous,
even admirable, for a woman to have a baby whom she knows will be
so?”

fathers commit a tiny minority of child abuse and about half the domestic
violence.

The vast majority of child physical and sexual abuse is committed in
single-parent homes, home usually where the father is not present. "Contrary to public perception,
research shows that the most likely physical abuser of a young child will be that childs mother, not a
male in the household." [Patrick Fagan and Dorothy Hanks,
The Child Abuse Crisis: The Disintegration of
Marriage, Family, and the American Community (Washington, DC: Heritage Foundation "Backgrounder," 3
June 1997), p. 16.]

The father is the parent most likely to be the protector of children. "The
presence of the father . . . placed the child at lesser risk for child sexual abuse," according to David
L. Rowland, Laurie S. Zabin, and Mark Emerson, in a study of low-income families. "The protective effect
from the father's presence in most households was sufficiently strong to offset the risk incurred by the
few paternal perpetrators." ["Household Risk and Child Sexual Abuse in a Low Income, Urban Sample of
Women," Adolescent and Family Health, vol. 1, no. 1 (Winter 2000), pp. 29-39.]

A British study found children are up to 33 times more likely to be abused
when a live-in boyfriend or stepfather is present than in an intact family. [Robert Whelan, Broken
Homes and Battered Children: A Study of the Relationship between Child Abuse and Family Type (London:
Family Education Trust, 1993), p. 29.]

Cornell University professor Urie Bronfenbrenner
One of the most eminent developmental psychologists of our time wrote:

"Controlling for factors such as low income, children growing up in [father absent] households are at
a greater risk for experiencing a variety of behavioural and educational problems, including extremes of
hyperactivity and withdrawal; lack of attentiveness in the classroom; difficulty in deferring gratification;
impaired academic achievement; school misbehaviour; absenteeism; dropping out; involvement in socially
alienated peer groups, and the so-called teenage syndrome of behaviours that tend to hang
together smoking, drinking, early and frequent sexual experience, and in the more extreme cases, drugs,
suicide, vandalism, violence, and criminal acts."

Paternal Abandonment

Research, mainly in the Unites States, published in refereed journals by respected scholars like Sanford
Braver, Margaret Brinig, Douglas Allen, Ilene Wolcott, Jody Hughes, Judith Wallerstein, and Sandra
Blakeslee, and corroborated by the professional experience of authors as ideologically diverse as Constance
Ahrons, Shere Hite, David Chambers, Robert Seidenberg, and Rosalind Miles, indicates that paternal
abandonment cannot account for widespread fatherlessness.

Father-deprivation
is a more reliable predictor of criminal activity than
race, environment or poverty.

"Father-deprivation is a serious form of child abuse
that is institutionalized and entrenched within our
legal system. Powerful sexist people have a vested
interest in diminishing the role of men, especially
their role as fathers. Research proves that children
thrive with the active and meaningful participation of
both biological parents, and is true for post-divorce
families." (Dick Feeman, Joseph Maiello, Mike Jebbet,
"Child Custody or Child Abuse", Victoria Times-Colonist,
Jan 8, 1998).

The American Psychological Association, Inc.,
The Journal of Family Psychology, December 1999 Vol. 13, No. 4, 568-579

by Robert E. Emery, Mary Waldron and Katherine M. Kitzmann.

This is another study showing that children are significantly disadvantaged in never-married sole
maternal custody or divorced sole-maternal custody than in intact families. In fact, the study does indicate
that the damage of divorce is about the same level as never having the children involved with their father.
Certainly, raising children outside of the influence of both parents is clearly detrimental to the
child. More..

by Geoffrey
P. Miller, from New York University School of Law, Public Law and Legal Theory Working Paper Series, Working
Paper 5, 1999. The paper discusses the perceptions and reality of the involvement of fathers during
pregnancy, childbirth, and early childhood.
More..

Judicial passivism turning fathers into
deadbeats

When mothers lose in court, they are not
made to pay court costs -- again on the
premise that this would only take money away
from the children. But payment of penalties
and costs is merely a transfer between
parents, and only prejudice supports the
proposition that fathers would be less
generous toward their children than mothers,
given the time and financial ability to do
so.

Contrast the endless lame excuses
judges use not to impose remedies for access
denial with their attitude toward making and
enforcing child-support orders.
More ..

How "Daddy" affects your job: psychologist

Reuters, U.S.A., By Ellen Wulfhorst Fri May 12, 2006

NEW YORK, U.S.A. (Reuters) - Successes or failures of employees
in the workplace can be traced to what kind of father they had, a
psychologist argues in a new book.

In "The Father Factor," Stephan Poulter lists five styles of fathers
-- super-achieving, time bomb, passive, absent and
compassionate/mentor -- who have powerful influences on the careers
of their sons and daughters.
More ..

Put kids first, judge tells parents

Children pay a big price when they grow up without fathers, but it's unfair to blame it all on men who
walk away, says a North York family court judge.

Harvey Brownstone says he welcomes recent public discussion about the risks faced by kids who don't have a
father in their lives.

But Brownstone, who has seen thousands of support, custody and access cases during his 11 years on the
bench, says there are many misperceptions about why it's happening. And most often it's because parents
can't get along or want nothing to do with each other.

"You would be shocked how many men say, `I didn't know I had a child until I got these court papers,'" he
says in an interview at his office in the provincial court building.

And, when they find out, almost all of them take steps to become involved in their child's life, even if
it's years after the child was born, Brownstone says.
More ..

Boys harmed by fathers' absence

The Age (Melbourne, Australia), By CHLOE SALTAU, Tuesday April 3, 2001

Boys are disadvantaged without the emotional presence of a man in their lives, according to a social
researcher who is interviewing men about relationships with their fathers.

Patra Antonis, a psychologist, counsellor and Swinburne University masters student, says men should "be
around the herd" and bond with their sons in an inherently male, "rough-and-tumble" way. Her theory is
likely to reignite the debate about the impact of absent fathers on the development of their sons.

Ms Antonis is undertaking the research at a time when she says increases in the divorce rate and the rise of
out-of-wedlock childbearing have changed families and the role of parents within them.
More ..

Feminist "analysis" dismissive of fathers

I am beginning to wonder if being a card-carrying lunatic facilitates
getting published in journals of the American Psychological Association
(APA)

A report, recently published in the APA's Psychological Bulletin, by Bruce
Rind, Philip Tromovitch and Robert Bauserman, asserted that the "negative
potential" of child sexual abuse has "been overstated." The authors
rationalized that while "child sexual abuse is harmful," supposedly
consensual "child -adult sex" is not necessarily harmful and may, in some
cases, even be "beneficial." More..

Fathers no longer required:
Fertility chief signals an IVF revolution

Suzi Leather: 'It's the
relationship's quality that counts, not people's sex'Interview: Head of fertility watchdog says writing fathers out of the rules will extend the chance of
treatment to all women

The Truth About Deadbeat Dads

Now is the time for all good fathers to come to the aid of the family.

But you'd better hurry; your days are numbered. In fact, if you happen to be a heterosexual male (further doomed by Caucasian pigmentation), your days are already over, according to a cover article in the June issue of American Psychologist, published by the American Psychological Association.

In their article, "Deconstructing the Essential Father," researchers Louise B. Silverstein and Carl F. Auerbach challenge one of the core institutions of our culture -- fatherhood. More or less, fathers, as we've known and loved them, are obsolete.

The article makes numerous breathtaking assertions, but basically the researchers state that:

Smith L. The New Wave of Illegitimacy. Fortune 1994; 18: 81-94. Chart: US Bureau of the Census, Marital Status and Living Arrangements: March 1990. Current Population Report, p. 20, Washington, DC, 1993

One of the great papers confirming that the inclusion of both parents under a joint parenting arrangement is in the best interests of children is the meta-analytic study summarised in "Child Adjustment in Joint-Custody Versus Sole-Custody Arrangements: A Meta-Analytic Review" by Robert Bauserman from the Journal of Family Psychology, 2002, Vol. 16, No. 1, p. 91102. This study was announced in the American Psychological Associations Monitor, a copy of which is at
More...

Civitas: the Institute for the Study of Civil Society was founded in the UK to "deepen public understanding of the legal, institutional and moral framework that makes a free and democratic society possible." They have done some excellent work about how families are being destroyed and the toll that is taking on children and society. They have produced an excellent study of the impact of the "failed experiment" of fatherless families in and excellent study, available in PDF format, entitled Experiments in Living: The Fatherless Family. This is a great, and true, read. I would suggest it to every one. The study, and more very good material is available from Civitas's website at http://www.civitas.org.uk.

Prolific writer, professor and activist Stephen Baskerville wrote a great article for the Liberty journal, available in PDF format, entitled The Myth of Deadbeat Dads. I would highly recommend this to anyone who is interested in the astounding
demonization of fathers in the US and the rest of the Western world.

by Robert Bauserman, Journal of Family Psychology (2002), Vol. 16, No. 1, 91102 is an important study. It shows that children who have meaningful contact with both parents are significantly (statistically speaking) better off due to the lack of the damage done to children who lose contact with their father through divorce and the actions and inactions of the courts. Although there is only small numbers of sole parental custody cases in the study, it does indicate that that joint custody is superior there too. Children do need both parents active and part of their lives. This is a journal of the American Psychological Association, so there is some soft-pedalling of the result although the anti-family groups will likely trot out the old myths again, although the study disproves them. The APA has been wonderful in this case and made the paper available to the public at http://www.apa.org/journals/fam/press_releases/march_2002/fam16191.pdf (which is where our link took you). The abstract is below, but I would note that in states were joint custody is really the default decision, conflict between parties has always been lower since there is no gain, and only loss, by a party creating conflict.

The author meta-analyzed studies comparing child adjustment in joint physical or joint legal custody with sole-custody settings, including comparisons with paternal custody and intact families where possible. Children in joint physical or legal custody were better adjusted than children in sole-custody settings, but no different from those in intact families. More positive adjustment of joint-custody children held for separate comparisons of general adjustment, family relationships, self-esteem, emotional and behavioural adjustment, and divorce-specific adjustment. Joint-custody parents reported less current and past conflict than did sole-custody parents, but this did not explain the better adjustment of joint-custody children. The results
are consistent with the hypothesis that joint custody can be advantageous for children in some cases, possibly by facilitating ongoing positive involvement with both parents.

In a longitudinal study of a national sample, more externalizing
behavior problems were found among 222 children from never-married
and 142 children from divorced families than among 840 children from
married families. However, delinquent behavior reported when future
mothers were single, childless adolescents prospectively predicted
their future marital status and behavior problems among their
offspring 14 years later. Maternal history of delinquent behavior
accounted for much, but not all, of the relationship between marital
status and children's externalizing behavior. Divorce and nonmarital
childbirth do not occur at random, and these findings demonstrate
that marital status is predicted by individual characteristics as
well as by demographic factors. These findings highlight the
importance of cautiously interpreting the much-discussed correlation
between marital status and children's behavior problems.

by Gary Painter, from the Institute of Industrial Relations Working Paper Series, No. 69, September 24, 1999 explores the fact that growing up in family that lacks a biological father is correlated with a number of poor outcomes  and that those correlations are casual.

by Geoffrey P. Miller, from New York University School of Law, Public Law and Legal Theory Working Paper Series, Working Paper 5, 1999 discusses the perceptions and reality of the involvement of fathers during pregnancy, childbirth, and early childhood.

Edited by Stuart Birks and Paul Callistert. Published by the Centre for Public Policy Evaluation, Massey University, New Zealand.
It has very good information about fathers, fatherhood and fathering-related topics.

The Canadian Journal of Human Sexuality, Vol. 8(1) Spring 1999, p. 39-45, by Tanya S. Scheffler and Peter J. Naus.
This paper describes how women grow up to be more comfortable with themselves if they have on-going and positive affirmation by their father.
More..

This contentious article written by Louise B. Silverstein, Ph.D.and Carl F. Auerbach, Ph.D. was published in the American Psychological Association's publication,
The American Psychologist, Volume 54, Number 6 (June 1999), p. 397-407.

The article defines "essential" as being something other than essential, but a rejection of the theories of Blankenhorn and Popenoe instead. It then uses "deconstruction" (a philosophical argument growing out of existentialism that basically says that words have no meaning so any study written down has no meaning except, presumably, this one) to dismiss the massive amounts of material on (1) men, and (2) men and children. It then goes on to use one of the author's small studies on certain ethnic males in a poor attempt to provide some validity to the preposterous, and admitted purely political arguments, of the authors -- which is most strongly anti-marriage. This particular article, along with a previous article supporting paedophilia show the new direction of the American Psychological Association, and goes even further to discrediting
the basic fakery of the psychologists.

Abstract
Neoconservative social scientists
have claimed that fathers are essential to positive child
development, and that responsible fathering is most likely to occur
within the context of heterosexual marriage. This perspective is
generating a range of governmental initiatives designed to provide
social support preferences to fathers over mothers; and to
heterosexual married couples, rather than to alternative family
forms. More..

Lancaster New Era, by Maggie Gallagher, Sunday, July 25, 1999.
This article talks about the goal of the article: "to torpedo the emerging new consensus that intact marriages are important for kids." More..

Jewish World Review, by Binyamin L. Jolkovsky, Tuesday, July 27, 1999.
Louise Silverstein and Carl Auerbach comments about how they are upset that others have so negatively reviewed their article which is blatantly biased. More..

Calgary Herald, Calgary, AB, Canada, by Charles W. Moore, Thursday, July 29, 1999
"I am beginning to wonder if being a card-carrying lunatic facilitates getting published in journals of the American Psychological Association (APA)."More..

Jewish World Review, by Cathy Young, Friday, July 30, 1999.
Another look at the article, which figures that its political agenda is more anti-marriage than necessarily anti-father. More..

REPORT: Children Need Dads Too: Children with fathers in prison

Quakers United Nations Office
July 2009

Children are heavily impacted by parental imprisonment and greater
attention should be given to their rights, needs and welfare in criminal
justice policy and practice. Due to a variety of reasons such as mothers
often being the primary or sole carer of children, complicated care
arrangements, the likelihood of women prisoners being greater distances
from home and a host of factors explored in detail in other QUNO
publications, maternal imprisonment can be more damaging for children
than paternal imprisonment. However, it is important not to
underestimate the damage that paternal imprisonment can have on
children.

Children with incarcerated fathers experience many of the same problems
as those with incarcerated mothers, including coping with loss,
environmental disruption, poverty, stigmatisation, health problems and
all of the difficulties involved in visiting a parent in prison. It
appears that there are also some difficulties specifically associated
with paternal imprisonment, such as a higher risk of juvenile
delinquency and strained relationships between the mother and child.

The numbers of children separated from their fathers due to imprisonment
is far higher than those separated from their mothers due to the vast
majority of prisoners being men (globally over 90 per cent of prisoners
are male. To ignore this group would, therefore, be to neglect the vast
majority of children affected by parental imprisonment.
More..